Friday, April 8, 2016 My 14 minute rant of the day 
Good day folks. Now that we are slowly approaching the end of this petition, I have been busy mulling what I might do to take the effort to the next phase. I do not have illusions that the petition itself will not overnight have hidden safety data of Glyphosate released and the safety balloon burst.

But, this is the second time an MP has taken interest in my efforts to address Glyphosate. The first one was over two years ago, when the then NDP MP Mr. Alex Atamanenko of BC hand carried my letter to the then Health Minister Rona Ambrose, that dealt with why Canada did not have any lab where Canadian foods and Canadian people could be tested for presence of glyphosate.

I have to admit, we now have an increasing number of labs that do offer glyphosate testing in our food and slowly and increasing number of labs are beginning to look into testing some of the human and animal body fluids, such as milk. I do not claim that I am the sole reason these labs have come up - No. Surely these are results of a multiple sets of events. But I did receive a response from the Rona Ambrose Ministry at the time and while I was very disappointed by the letter and its tendency to avoid calling a spade a spade, I have to say things do move in Canada, even if rather slowly and a bit late compared to other nations. Alex Atamanenko was an MP sitting in the opposition bench. Carla Qualtrough is a sitting cabinet minister. Besides, the Trudeau Government is supposed to be in a consultation process. So who can tell what happens? I have my doubts about eradicating Glyphosate in a hurry because I know the ground reality of Canadian agriculture. Without industrial scale farming, Canada’s agriculture would be down to its knees and it would have to go through a long and agonizing shift back to clean agriculture with small scale farmers.. a transition that is unlikely to happen in a hurry. Nonetheless, unless we put Glyphosate as a dangerous chemical on a war footing, we are, as a people, as a nation, and as an environment, are going to be toast. Doing nothing is not an option. So, what do we do from now on. 
Well, here is my 14 minute rant of the day. I would very much like to get in touch with the other 80 from Delta that supported the petition, or several hundred that collectively supported it from my neighbouring and nearby towns like Surrey, Langley, Richmond etc. I am even willing to drive and go meet like minded folks all the way to North Van to the north and Abbotsford or Chilliwack, BC in the west.

Perhaps all of us, all across Canada and beyond, would try to find ways to express ourselves better than before to apply pressure from below, to test our environment for Glyphosate, start gathering data and help scientists to look into possible link between rising ill-health and prevalence of glyphosate or other toxic elements in our living space.

I repeat : my email is tony.mitra@gmail.com I am willing to explore whatever works around here, or what others might try. I also think its time to have mushrooming groups all across Canada - doing things and passing information back and forth on what works and what does not etc. That, more or less, is my day’s rant. Cheers
 Tony